And almost in time for the 38th anniversary of this single being released!

On September 22, 1980, the final single from Never For Ever was released: Army Dreamers. Compared to the previous two singles, Army Dreamers was quite a change of pace from Breathing (prog-rock, Kate’s “little symphony”) and Babooshka (upbeat piano rock). After the intensity of the previous two singles, what we have here is a quiet, folk sort of song in a waltz time (bum BUM BUM bum BUM BUM) with a sweet-sounding vocal delivery from Kate.

But as we all know with Kate, not everything that sounds sweet actually is!

Beneath the quiet atmosphere in this song, we have a tragic tale of a mother mourning the accidental death of her son. And to talk about the song this week, we have two fans: Christopher Kelley, who was featured on the Violin episode, and Gregory Chappell, a long-time fan from Virginia. With these two fans, we get into the history of the song, the folky instruments used in the song’s production, how well it did on the charts, our histories with this song, and, of course, the lyrics! What is a BFPO and, really, she’s saying “like a chicken with a fox”?

After the episode proper, keep listening for an outtake from our discussion with Gregory about what it was like to be a Kate fan in the pre-Internet era.

You would think that an episode about a fifty-two second long interlude track would be about that long. Instead, we got an episode that was almost nine times as long as the song itself! Not bad, wouldn’t you say?

In the shortest episode so far of the show, Cecilee is on her own to talk about this interlude track, an ethereal a cappella piece in between the scary Infant Kiss and the folk-tinged Army Dreamers. In this episode, we’ll learn what is a night-scented stock is and we’ll hear a sample of this song used in a house track from the early 90s, Les enfants du paradis by Loopzone!

All our barriers are going. Time to bring you another episode of Strange Phenomena!

Can you believe we’re almost done with Never For Ever album songs? We can’t either.

Our song for discussion this week is a rather controversial Kate Bush song inspired by a movie (of course!) that was inspired by a story (of course again!): The Infant Kiss, a song that takes its inspiration from the 60s film The Innocents, an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. In this episode, we talk with a super fan of the show and song, Zoey P, about this song’s inspiration, why Zoey loves this song, and why this song is so controversial among fans.

We also discuss the French adaptation Un baiser d’enfant, which was specially recorded for the Canadian market in 1982, two years after this song first appeared on an album!

Are you ready to climb with Paganini up to the chimney to jig along with the fiddle-dee-diddle-dee-dee? If you are, then get ready for a rocking discussion of the violin-infused, well, Violin, the seventh track from Never For Ever.

We are joined by two guests for this episode: Wayne Henderson, who you’ll remember from last season’s episode In Search of Peter Pan, and Christopher Kelly, a young Kate fan who’s come on the show to talk about why he loves this song so much. We get into the history of this song, starting from its inception as a Cathy demo, the live version from Kate’s Tour of Life and her Christmas special, all the way to its inclusion on Never For Ever. Along the way, we talk about the numerous references in this song, such as banshees, Paganini, and Nero. And who can forget the live performances, where Kate hits some of her highest recorded notes ever?

We hope you can give the hunt up for another episode of Strange Phenomena! Because it’s here!

The Wedding List is the first song on Side B of Never For Ever, and what a way to start that side! We’ve gone from the ethereal Egypt to one of the most rocking songs that Kate has ever done. Only Kate!

A classic revenge tale of a widowed bride seeking vengeance on the man who killed her husband on their wedding day, The Wedding List was inspired by the François Truffaut movie The Bride Wore Black (itself the inspiration for the Kill Bill movies). On hand to discuss this song is Zoey P, a huge film buff and fan of this song. In this episode, we talk about the lyrics (of course!), speculate about who Rudi is, what a cherootie might be, and our favorite Kate vocal moments!

Oh and of course, we talk about the live performances too: Kate’s 1979 Christmas special performance, and her live rendition in 1982 with an all-star band at the Prince’s Trust charity event, a performance that’s famous for more than just hearing her sing live!

For this week’s song, the ethereal Egypt, we make a call to Serbia to chat with a young fan named Uroš about his love for this song, the fifth track from Never For Ever. Uroš is a young Kate fan from Serbia who has always loved this song, so he has a lot to say about why this is one of his favorite Kate tunes!

While we get to talk about why we like this song, we also discuss the theme of the lyrics, which remind both of us of the earlier Kashka from Baghdad from Lionheart. Much is discussed about the issue of stereotyping and romanticizing a place you don’t know much about. We also get into the version of this song performed on the Tour of Life in 1979, before this song was even recorded in a studio, and the first time this song was performed on a TV audience, during the Kate Bush Christmas special later that year!

We hope you’ll be in love with this episode like Kate was with Egypt!

Song clips used:

Egypt (live at the Manchester Apollo, April 1979) (footage of Kate performing the song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbTak2InhI

Egypt (live at the Manchester Apollo, April 1979) (pictures of her performing the song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG9gKW1Y9bo

All we ever want for you is to listen to this new episode of Strange Phenomena!

All We Ever Look For doesn’t seem to be a song that is discussed much in the Kate Bush canon, and it’s really quite a shame! Because we found not one but TWO fans of this song to discuss it this week, and they have a lot to say.

This week, we’re joined by two guests who both love this week’s song, All We Ever Look For, the fourth track from Never For Ever: Keith DeWeese, who joined us on Oh England My Lionheart, and Zoey P, a favorite guest on our show last season and this season! With both of our guests, we dig into the complex psychology in the lyrics (especially from Zoey!), the sweet-sounding-but-not-quite arrangement (what Keith called “Kate Bush fairy music”), and one of Zoey’s favorite Kate Bush vocal moments, among many!

Not bad for a song that doesn’t seem to get discussed very much!

Also in this episode, hear a clip of a live orchestral rendition of All We Ever Look For performed by the Göthenberg Symphony Orchestra for their special Kate Bush tribute show, This Woman’s Work: A Tribute to Kate Bush, which is available to watch here:

One of the band told us last night that we’d be coming out with a new episode of Strange Phenomena this week! In this episode, we get to fly away with the third track from Never For Ever, Blow Away (For Bill). This week, Cecilee is joined by Alex Dale, a writer from London who considers this song to be one of his favorite pieces of music ever.

In this episode, Cecilee and Alex discuss the song at length, from its inspiration (the death of Bill Duffield, the lighting engineer for Kate’s tour) to its intriguing musical structure and arrangement, to the leaked piano demo showing different lyrics and the exclusion of a third verse that hadn’t been written yet. Cecilee and Alex also discuss the deceased rock stars mentioned in the song, what it means to “put out the light,” their own personal histories with the song and how this song grew on both of them!

We promise we won’t be moody in this episode all about the beautiful song Delius (Song of Summer), the second track from Never For Ever. As a matter of fact, this episode will be cheery as the summer, since this is Cecilee’s favorite song on Never For Ever, so she has a lot to say!

And so does our guest, Keith DeWeese, who was the guest on Oh England My Lionheart last season! Listen as Keith and Cecilee discuss the production of this song as well as the song’s inspiration, the 1968 BBC movie Song of Summer, a movie about the British composer Frederick Delius. They also discuss who Fenby is, why it’s important that he’s being told “in B,” and the intriguing music video for this song, filmed in early 1980.

It’ll all make sense in this episode!

Movie clips used:

Song of Summer, 1968 BBC film

Song clips used:

Two Songs to Be Sung of a Summer Night on the Water by Frederick Delius

Babooshka is not just the album opener, but it was also the second single released from Never For Ever. It was a huge hit everywhere it was released, going to #5 in the UK, where it spent ten weeks on the chart. The fact that it’s not just a catchy-as-hell song but it also was accompanied by a sexy, famous video certainly didn’t hurt the success of this song on the charts!

This week, we get to hear from three fans of Babooshka, who have come on the show to talk about what this song means to them and the history of the song. We have Elizabeth Anne from western Pennsylvania, Vanessa from Toronto, and FreezingInferno from Newfoundland. We get to hear how they all came across this song (and Kate’s music in general!), why this song is one of their favorites, and also the theme of the song: a woman testing her husband’s fidelity. We also get to talk about the music video and the origins of that famous warrior outfit.